Eugene Jarecki has teamed with former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to launch his documentary “The Six Billion Dollar Man,” about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, using what he calls a “pre-theatrical digital release” model that will bring the film straight to the global Bitcoin community and the general public. It’s an effort to bypass U.S. studios and streamers that, he says, “were never going to touch this.”
The Emmy-winning American director and Dorsey, who now heads digital Bitcoin payments company Block, were in Tuscany, Italy, over the weekend, where they attended Rick Rubin’s under-the-radar music event Festival of the Sun. There, Dorsey held a conversation with Edward Snowden on digital freedom and the future of the web, marking a rare public interview for the former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping U.S. surveillance programs and now lives in Russia.
“The Six Billion Dollar Man,” which probes the U.S. government’s attempts to extradite Julian Assange from the U.K. and reveals how right-wing donor Sheldon Adelson used a Spanish security company to spy on Assange, won a top prize at the Cannes Films Festival in 2025 and scooped the first Golden Globe for Documentary award. Yet, Jarecki laments that no U.S. studio or streamer is willing to release the film. He and Dorsey are now circumventing the gatekeepers.
